1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to an electronics device, and more specifically to an electronics device capable of communicating between components operating at different clock speeds with reduced latency and/or power consumption.
2. Related Art
Electronics devices often include components that operate using different clock signals. In some instances those different clocks are extremely disparate from one another. In this case, when the components need to communicate (transfer data) with each other, the differing clock signals can present significant latency and/or power consumption that is often unacceptable for proper device operation.
To provide an example, a wireless communication device, such as a cellular telephone, includes a Baseband Processor that operates on a 100 MHz clock signal, and which must communicate with a Power Management Unit (PMU) that typically operates on a 32 kHz clock signal. Thus, the Baseband Processor operates nearly 3000 times faster than the PMU. As a result, even a simple request to transfer data to the PMU will require a minimum of almost 3000 clock cycles within the Baseband Processor to complete the instruction. This delay consumes significant computing power that the Baseband Processor could be utilizing to perform additional functions, and therefore creates an impermissible drain on system performance. Similar issues arise when attempting to transfer data from the PMU to the Baseband Processor.
Although the above example is provided with respect to a wireless communication device, these problems arise in any electronics device in which two components operating with different clock signals must communicate with each other, and particularly within electronics device containing a PMU, as PMUs components generally operate on an extremely low clock signal and with low power-consumption relative to other components. Examples of such devices may include a standalone or a discrete device, such as a mobile telephone or laptop computer, or may be incorporated within or coupled to another electrical device or host device, such as a portable computing device, a camera, or a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit or another computing device such as a personal digital assistant, a video gaming device, a laptop, a desktop computer, or a tablet, a computer peripheral such as a printer or a portable audio and/or video player to provide some examples and/or any other suitable electronic device that will be apparent to those skilled in the relevant art(s) without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
Thus, there is a need for an electronics device that can efficiently provide data transfers between electrical components that operate on different clock signals with reduced latency. Further aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the detailed description that follows.
The invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the reference number.